


Whumptober 2019

by aphoticdepths



Category: Fate/Grand Order, Hollow Knight (Video Games), Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry, Мор. Утопия | Pathologic
Genre: Canon-Typical Gross Eating Habits, Character Study, Child Abuse, Depression, Gen, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Gun Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Ushiromiyas are their own warning, Whump, Whumptober, child endangerment
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-10 16:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20854880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphoticdepths/pseuds/aphoticdepths
Summary: I'll almost definitely not be able to follow up on this, and this will probably definitely be at least 85% Pathologic. Still.





	1. Day 1: Shaky Hands(Pathologic, Artemy-focused gen)

**Author's Note:**

> I considered Kinktober and Goretober but honestly, I thought this would be easiest for me and then it was on FFA so, shrug.

Artemy Burakh's hands hadn't shaken with a knife since he was eighteen until now. The man's stomach was a bloody mess-he wasn't afraid of blood, he knew better than that, but his head was throbbing and he had to take a step back. His own fault, deciding he should cut up a body while his fever was this bad, but he didn't have a choice, did he? Normally he'd have to breathe, try to get air in and center himself, but the theater's stink of bile, blood, pus, and decay was heavy enough it was like soup. No breathing in that-in this state, he'd end up being sick on himself. Instead, he bit the inside of his cheek until the taste of blood was back in his mouth-by now it almost felt like an old friend.  
  
The pain brought his mind back into something closer to focus, and Artemy looked down at the scalpel he gripped. His hand was shaking hard enough he could see it. Good thing for the gloves-he could feel himself sweating, and a wet grip would make anything impossible. He needed antibiotics, but the only options were old enough that he wasn't willing to risk their side effects in what Victor Kain had somehow decided counted as a hospital. He raised the blade, saw it wavering, felt his body burning from inside.  
  
No. Too unsteady to cut anything, even a corpse. Not now, not in this town. He forced his heavy lids to keep open and reached into his bag-a fever didn't stop him from taking blood, and he was going to need a lot of that.


	2. Explosions(Hollow Knight, Leg Eater)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leg Eater misjudges a risk.

Corpses had been getting more and more dangerous these days. It used to be that Leg Eater could sneak up on a body after the predators had eaten their full and snatch the Geo for himself with whatever bits he could snap off the body, but that had changed.

Some bodies always exploded, of course, but not all of them. The sick ones that make their way down from the higher places were always safe-even safe to eat, if you made sure to check it was clean enough times. Even Leg Eater could take down some of them.

He’d smelled the danger, the stringent infection in the air getting stronger and stronger. It was thick and heavy on this one-but it was already dead, and he wasn’t going to eat one this sick. All he needed was the Geo he already heard tinkling on the stone.

He’d gathered it up when the corpse exploded. The roar and impact of the explosion and the overpowering sourness of the infection that filled the air around him for a moment took all senses away, leaving only the agonizing pain as it tore apart his too-soft flesh. All his antennae could sense was choking fog in the air and the aftershocks of the explosion.

Leg Eater couldn’t stay out in the open. Even doubly blinded, he scratched at the cave floor with his forelegs, pulling himself in the direction he thought he’d come from as his Soul seeped out of the rips in his skin. As his senses dimly came back to him, he was able to get himself back to his place-kings lives in palaces, but he wasn’t sure that his cave was that yet. It was secure already, of course, but he couldn’t let himself have any openings.

Leg Eater had learned to be clever a long time ago, learned every lesson a blind termite left outside his nest to die could to stay alive. He had been nesting under the shells of other bugs for enough time now that his empty belly hurt nearly as much as his other injuries. The danger hadn’t gone away. He wasn’t safe enough to go outside-who knew what his Soul would attract, especially when he was so small and weak and unprotected? All he could do was curl his wounded body up with the soothing, textured coolness of his Geo hoard and hope that it would help him heal soon enough he could see if any other bugs had made his same mistake. These new dangers could be useful, after all...


	3. Delirium(Pathologic, Fat Vlad and Artemy)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Funnily enough, on Day 8-which is the day I usually end up taking whoever needs to be taken to the Termitary-all three Olgimskys are In Danger and can be infected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is late because there were SO MANY OPTIONS. Some alternates I was considering were general unreality vs logic with Yulia, weird Rat Prophet shit with Saburov, the risk of one of the Bound ending up like the mummies, Lara and Artemy, something similar to this with Georgiy getting a delirious victor to agree with his Polyhedron-related plans(decided against it because we still don't know enough about what's going on there in P2-verse), just honestly this whole fucking game....

“Where is my wife?”

Artemy stopped, foot still on the threshold of the lump. He’d been expecting rage, perhaps a demand for an explanation. Grieving was almost off the table, but possible.

Vlad Olgimsky sat slumped at his desk, wrapped in heavy blankets and cloths that almost made him look small huddled beneath them. His face was shrouded, but his voice was a croak with an unhealthy rattle to it.

“Where is she?” he repeated. “Where’s Victoria? The rabble have gone mad...rioting in the streets...she always was too soft with them. If she’s out there…”

Artemy could think of many extremely descriptive words for Fat Vlad. ‘Feeble’ had never been one of them.

He lurched half-forwards, trying to push himself to his feet. “Stop standing there, boy, tell me-” His attempt at a demand was interrupted by a fit of wet coughs that had him collapsing back into his chair, doubling over.

Artemy didn’t pity him in the least-if anything, this was what he had coming. But it was hard to feel satisfied from this, even a grim satisfaction.

Olgimsky forced in breath in a gasping wheeze, fighting to return to normal. Artemy watched unmoving as he struggled for breath, hunched over and panting as he wheezed between words. “You. Burakh...aren’t you? Medicine. I need medicine-I need...Find Victoria. Tell her-” He began to cough again.

“Your son is dead,” Artemy told him, and left.


	4. Gunpoint(Umineko, Rudolf&Rosa)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> USHIROMIYAS. I can’t think of a summary for this chapter except USHIROMIYAS. Warning for cycles of abuse, parental abuse, gun violence-you know. Ushiromiya things.

When he was a kid, Rudolf had stolen one of Kinzo’s guns. He’d been dumb and frustrated with Krauss and Eva mocking him and he’d taken the gun, unloaded it-he put the bullets back-and went out to the grounds to pretend he was some gunslinger, making sound effects for each ‘shot’.

Rosa had found him and demanded to play with him. He’d been overcome with desperation and went along with it-he aimed the gun at her head and growled, “Shoulda brought your own gun, varmint!” before pulling the trigger. 

What Rudolf had wanted was a struggle, a joking fight to take his mind off things. Instead, Rosa shrieked and fell backwards in terror before starting to cry in loud, wailing sobs. Rudolf was overcome by rage-rage that Krauss and Eva always teamed up to attack the young interloper while he was left alone, rage that his sister was such a fucking  _ baby,  _ rage that no matter how many friends and girls he had on the mainland he was always left to fend for himself as soon as he was on Rokkenjima, rage at his siblings and father that he couldn’t take out on them-and slammed the pistol across her crying face It only made Rosa make more of a racket-enough to draw the servants and lead to one of his worst beatings. Rosa got one too, because she’d gone along with his theft, but Rudolf’s was bad enough they’d had to call Nanjo in.

The next time Rudolf pulled the trigger on Rosa, the gun was loaded.


	5. Dragged Away(Pathologic, Artemy and Lara)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Artemy gets Lara home.

The change from the Backbone to the Flank was palpable-the air already began to smell as Lara and Artemy neared the pyre that marked the entrance, but it only got fouler, thick with that oily soot.

  
Cub didn't seem to even notice it-just adjusting the filthy rag on his face with one hand and dragging her forwards with the other, his grip bone-crushingly tight. It was going to bruise, she was almost sure of that. He hadn't let go since they were at the Town Hall, just gripping painfully with a sweat-slick hand. He was afraid that she'd run away. What would she run away to?

  
She'd made her way through this before, but in daylight, without Artemy dragging her after his longer step, with fervor and purpose and a reason to keep walking. Now she walked because she was being pulled, stumbling over the corpses that littered the ground. A fevered hand rose and grabbed her ankle-Lara turned back, but Artemy yanked her forwards.

  
"There are too many," he growled. "There's nothing we can do." His teeth were grit.

  
They made their way through the Flank, pyres and streetlamps lighting the way. Lara was out of breath and any of the foul air that she took in just made her cough, but Cub didn't relent. He didn't let go of her until he'd slammed the door to the Shelter shut behind them and he slumped against it, gasping for breath just as she was. It was cleaner indoors, marginally-the air stank, but it wouldn't kill you.

  
"You hurt me." She should be angry, but the feeling didn't seem to come-all she felt was that she had failed.

  
"I can't lose you. I didn't have enough." Her eyes were used to her home, and she could see the tears glinting in his eyes. "Gravel, I've already-there wasn't enough of the cure for them all, so many sick, I had to-I couldn't lose you." His voice cracked, his head bowed.

  
Perhaps Lara should be weeping like he was. But then she would have had to have been weeping for a very long time.


	6. Isolation(Fate Grand Order, Skadi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introspection inspired by Skadi’s valentine, which still haunts me.

The other kings had become part of Chaldea. Ruler supervised everything, Rider doted on Ritsuka as a father, and Berserker trailed after the footsteps of his other self. Skadi did not allow herself this luxury.

The holograms couldn’t bring her kingdom back. When she dwelt in the false palace the simulator had constructed, she could feel its falseness and she knew that what was outside her windows was an even thinner fantasy. It was better than trying to make a place that was not for her her family. Seeing affection there only reminded her of how much she had lost.

She had been Skadi the loyal daughter of the Jotunn, Skadi the precious envoy of the Aesir, Skadi the only divinity that remained. Each time, she had been the only one left of her family.

When the battle for Ragnarok began and the giants’ minds left them and no one but Skadi had cared to mourn, she thought that was pain. When she alone had been left standing with the mindless husks of her people, she had known no pain could surpass that. Now, there was too much pain for it to hurt.

What the simulator gave her was false-she could even feel it in the magic that supported her castle, a feeble shadow of the runes she cast. But even for that, it let her grasp some of what had been taken from her, gave her even a thin, lifeless illusion to cling to. And it was far less alone than she would have been in the crowd.


End file.
